New fire service figures have been released and it has been revealed that cigarettes caused every fatal house fire in Lincolnshire in 2012.

Although the figure of accidental dwelling fires fell to 212 compared with 365 in 2011 and 380 in 2010, fatalities rose from one to three.

It was added by the fire service that those involved in smoking-related fires often needed more medical help and officers said such incidents tended to happen as people were falling asleep and appealed for smokers to take care.

The Fire Safety Manager said: “These accidental fires often start when people are at their most vulnerable, which is why they are so often fatal.

“So, we are trying to encourage people to not smoke when feeling tired, especially in bed or lounging in a chair. And to remember that if they have been drinking alcohol or taking medication, they may feel drowsy.”

It is advised also that smokers should always use an ashtray, never smoke in bed and make sure the contents of ashtrays were completely extinguished.

To respond better in emergencies a fire brigade in Amsterdam has mapped the risks in the city by combining 600,000 objects such as buildings, railways and roads with possible incident types such as fires and traffic accidents.

This allows them to build a risk profile of particular streets and understand the types of incident that are most common in particular locations and helps them to benchmark its performance against national standards.

The team has also used the tool to reduce the chance of fire in certain areas. By analysing the data they found that 20 percent of all fires in the whole district were caused by unsafe cooking.

For more please visit the full article at http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/19/amsterdam-fire-brigades

A watchdog has announced that a waste site in Wales which caught fire earlier this year and burned for over 10 days failed to meet environmental standards.

The company A Lewis and Co, who’s site is based in Nantyglo, Blaenau Gwent said it believed the fire was started deliberately.

Some waste that was moved onto nearby council land as firefighters attempted to tackle the blaze has still to be removed.

Rhys Williams, speaking on behalf of A Lewis and Co, said the firm was in discussions with Blaenau Gwent council over who was responsible for the waste, which was now more expensive to remove after becoming waterlogged during efforts to tackle the fire.

“Landfill tax is on weight. When it was on here – let’s say there were 400 tonnes of it – that 400 tonnes was soaked and doused by the fire brigade for a week and a half,” he said.

“It now weighs twice or three times what it did. Therefore, the financial consequences of that are not of our making.”

It was announced last week thatthe target response times for Doncaster fire crews to attend life-threatening incidents could be axed under new proposals.

Currently the target for South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue is to attend 80 per cent of house fires or road crashes in six minutes or less which could also be extended to around 10 minutes after the brigade failed to hit the mark.

Also a third risk-based option – where communities traditionally prone to more fires have one target and those with fewer blazes a different one – is also being put out to public consultation from the beginning of this week.

The brigade – which has to save £9.5m over four years – has not met its self-set six-minute target once in six years and the report to the South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority said research showed response times were ‘not the main factor in preventing fire fatalities’.